You should always consult a qualified professional tax advisor to discuss your tax situation, especially in retirement or about to start retirement: Traditional IRAs (tax-deferred): You must pay taxes on distributions or conversions at ordinary federal and state rates. Roth IRA (non-deductible): Money grows tax-free and earnings may be withdrawn tax-free in accordance with IRS rules. State taxes: You may still face state taxes in retirement. Retirement can be a new, complex world. Our goal here is to help you understand that the retirement distribution game – spending assets in retirement – is much different than the accumulation game when you’re saving for retirement. Chances are, you have been in the accumulation phase of your life for several decades. You’ve been working hard trying to save money and hopefully your accounts have grown. But now, as you enter or prepare for retirement, you’re in an entirely different phase… The distribution phase. And the distribution phase has new, strange rules that can catch people off guard. Along with those new rules, there are often many changes in your own personal life that can have a big impact on your taxes, too. For instance, your children are grown and that means no more child tax credits. Your house may be fully paid off and that means no more mortgage interest deduction. If you’ve already retired, you may no longer be receiving tax-free employer-paid medical insurance. If you’ve stopped working, you may no longer have the ability to stash income in a 401(k) or similar plan to manage your annual tax bill. At some point, you’ll start taking Social Security. And sooner or later, when you reach 70 ½, you’ll have to start taking required distributions from your retirement accounts. The list of changes goes on. Many aspects of retirement will affect your tax bill in ways totally different from your working years. Understanding what these are, and how they can impact you, is absolutely crucial At MasteringYourMoney.com, we have a free E-book on Tax Planning in the Four Stages of Retirement.   Joining us for this discussion on Tax Planning in the Four Stages of Retirement is Markeith Gentry who is the station’s Production Assistant and makes sure Mastering Your Money is available to our listeners. Welcome back to Mastering Your Money, Markeith Gentry